Okay, I’ll admit this much… I bumped into GSB more than a year ago and tried the demo, but I never bought. The reason was that it was beautiful and well made, but it failed to give me the same experience I enjoyed with my old favorite, “Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain”, which I play to this day on occasion. That game was fairly simple and gave you the option to direct individual ships during combat. GSB, for all of its beauty, was frustrating because I had no feeling of command, and if I could only tell my friggin’ frigate to target THAT ship, I would have a real feeling of strategy.
And then I drifted back to the forums randomly after six or so months wondering, “perhaps someone could Mod those controls.” Ta-dah! I read that the latest version of the game allows you to not only control individual ships, but weapon systems?! Excellent!
So, NOW I’m interested again! What could possibly deter me from buying now (aside from having to see if my job is still intact or if I will have to choose between GSB and feeding my children)? I try to click through and see what the game will cost to download, along with all of its expansions… but what to do? Do you buy the basic GSB game, then add on each of the expansions? Do you buy the DLC Bundle, then add Parasites and Outcasts… then add Galactic Conquest? How about Collector’s Edition, add DLC, add Outcasts, then GC? The order system appears to be different for the add-ons, so you can’t just load them all into your cart, and from what I can tell there is no “add to cart - return to shopping” option to make sure you clicked them all.
My suggestion! (at long last!)
BUY => “Gratuitous Space Battles - COMPLETE”
Roll 'em all up into one package for one $50.00 (GSB $15, DLC $10, Parasites $6, Outcasts $6, Galactic Conquest $13)
You could almost sell that puppy with all the latest patches as GSB 2; but I would wager that you could really create a version 2 at some point and really add some awesome stuff… (oh, like charging super weapons, mecha, transforming/merging/break apart ships, research trees, etc)…
Anyway, that’s my thought. GSB Complete for $50.
Thoughts?